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NPR On Al Capone’s Vault Trump’s Tax Return

NPR Reporter: “…if it weren’t for the “Alternative Minimum Tax”, Trump would have paid a net tax rate of 3%”.

NPR Anchor: “Right – but there was an alternative minimum tax, and he paid a net rate of about 25% – considerably higher than Barack Obama and double what Bernie Sanders paid. So why the pointless “what if?” You’re “reporting” a complete nothingburger, here.”

(UPDATE: The anchor never said any of that. It was just a dream. The “reporter’s” line is pretty accurate, though).

I’d say 50/50 are the odds that Trump is playing the left. I am left with this; the left is corrupt (it’s a felony to reveal someone else’s tax returns) and stupid (the returns contradict their narrative).

How did Trump brand change from 2005 to 2016? Was he less greedy in 2005 than in 2016? Is the 2005 return not accurate? Or fake? Can sHrillary claim ANY year of her life where she paid more than 25%? Truth hurts, aint it? And if sTrumpet did leak it, it proves he is smarter then your average libturd. And certainly smarter than you.

It astonishes me that crackerjack investigative reporters are willing to commit felonies (or shield those who do commit them) to dig up portions of Trump’s tax returns from a decade ago, but are completely unable to find any hint of Barack Obama’s transcripts from college or law school. It’s almost as if the media is . . . well . . . biased?

There must be a hard split between the Left and Right when it comes to examining politicians’ tax returns. I assume that nobody pays more taxes than they are legally required to pay. I don’t care what is on Hillary’s tax return or Trump’s tax return.
What is new and nasty is the desire on the Left to examine tax records for information about a politician’s finances that does not reveal illegalities, but can be used as a political weapon. Donations to non-PC organizations, or investments in non-PC industries.
The “news” about Trump’s 2005 returns is usually accompanied by the announcement that “for decades, it has been traditional for presidential candidates to release their tax returns.” Well, who gives a f*ck? Until Wilson, it was traditional for decades for presidents to sport facial hair.
Trump, I suppose, knew what the “tax return” game was and refused to play it.

PoD: I hope Trump doesn’t allow Trumpcare to bog down his agenda of tax and regulatory reform. At what point will Trump see the writing on the wall and shelve his healthcare initiative and press ahead with his agenda?

Just because I like to make fun of MSNBC:
11/4/16
Scientist predicts 99% chance of Clinton win
Lawrence speaks to Princeton’s Sam Wang, who says Hillary Clinton has a greater than 99% chance of winning the presidency & that Democrats have a strong chance of taking the Senate. Josh Barro & Krystal Ball then discuss polls and Clinton’s star-studde… Duration: 10:39

I never get tired of pointing out the ridiculousness of America’s left-wing media:How Ed Schultz transformed from MSNBC lefty to the American face of Moscow media

Ed Schultz used to be the bombastic lefty host of a syndicated radio show and daily MSNBC program. He befriended Hillary Clinton, called Donald Trump “a racist” for his birther views, and once beseeched God to take Dick Cheney “to the promised land.”

In 2014, he ripped Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s “nasty” human rights record. He also torched American conservatives for siding with the Russian president as a counter to President Obama. “Putie is their new hero,” sneered Schultz.

But the times have changed. And so has Ed Schultz.

In mid-2015, MSNBC handed Schultz his last paycheck. After six years on the air, the ratings of his daily program, “The Ed Show,” were soft and MSNBC was going for more news in Schultz’s time slot, not opinion. His daily radio show had ended the previous year.

So Schultz went back to his lakefront home in Detroit Lakes, Minn., and took stock. At 61, after a lifetime in broadcasting, he concluded he wasn’t done. In early 2016, he returned to television, albeit in an unlikely place and role for a guy who once styled himself as a “prairie populist.” He became the lead news anchor for RT America, the domestic network of what was once known as Russia Today, a globe-spanning multimedia organization funded by the Russian government.

Bottom line there is no Constitutional Requirement for presidential candidate to reveal their income taxes. It’s nothing more than a demand by media for their release. I’m elated Trump more or less told them to PISS OFF!

EI, everyone ran on repeal and replace, we don’t do it we get slaughtered in the 2018 midterms. Tax relief will come, part of it in this bill so employers can hire more people and put people back at full time when the employer mandate has been recinded.

I’m thinking that a big part of what’s gone on here is that the biggest problems with Obamacare are the places where the law simply diverges with reality–but in a way that will be politically popular. Taxing the young and poor to pay for health insurance for the old, pretending you can sustain Medicare and Medicaid on 25% payment ratios, eliminating preexisting conditions clauses, and the like are all complete nonsense, but they are complete nonsense with a voting constituency built in.

To eliminate them, you’ve got to persuade the nation not only that they are BS, but also that the consequences of retaining said BS in the law is so big that you’ve got to do it now. Good luck getting guys whose job is to win popularity contests to make this case.

I would love to hear a rational explanation of why the public is entitled to examine anyone else’s tax return, other than to satisfy idle curiosity or to go on a fishing expedition.
Presumably some people do cheat on their taxes. We have a legal framework to investigate and prosecute tax cheats when it is necessary. This is not something that is crowd sourced, anymore than your taxes are investigated by crowd sourcing.
The only crime exposed by the leak of Flynn’s phone calls with the Russian ambassador was the crime committed by the leakers.
The only crime exposed by the leak of Trump’s tax returns was the crime committed by the leakers.

If Trump released all of his tax returns, and there was no smoking gun, liberals and their allies in the media would then demand to see the tax returns of his kids and his business associates.
Charles Cooke at NRO, no friend of Trump, laments the desire of the Left to find a silver bullet to take out Trump. They don’t want to go through the hard work of regaining all of the elective seats they have lost in the last eight years, especially if it means changing their policies to attract the hated white working class demographic. Instead they are convinced that they can find some dirt on Trump that will lead to his impeachment or resignation, and then everything will go back to the way it was before Trump, before Obama, and before Bush.

Try to keep up. The reporter who was mailed the returns said Trump may have sent it.
Trump tax returns from 2009 onwards reflect Russian funds laundered through Trump Inc. Holdings in Cyprus, Russia, Bahamas and Panama. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is major shareholder in largest Russian bank in Cyprus, which was used by Deutche Bank to launder Russian money, and is the largest note holder for Trump Holdings. Who does Trump think he is kidding, and how stupid is American public to go along with this nonsense. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article121981259.html

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal
—
The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

I need to link to this again. This story is being revived and rewritten to make Trump detractors even crazier.
They need to know that the FBI investigated this, found nothing, and the story was forgotten until Hillary lost and the krazee Trump haters were desperate to find anything – anything – to delegitimize his election.
New York Times, Nov. 1, 2016:The most serious part of the F.B.I.’s investigation has focused on the computer hacks that the Obama administration now formally blames on Russia. That investigation also involves numerous officials from the intelligence agencies. Investigators, the officials said, have become increasingly confident, based on the evidence they have uncovered, that Russia’s direct goal is not to support the election of Mr. Trump, as many Democrats have asserted, but rather to disrupt the integrity of the political system and undermine America’s standing in the world more broadly.https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html

The woman behind the obsession with Trump’s server pinging Alfa Bank. is a computer science prof named L. Jean Camp. although she likes to say that she is just a concerned citizen with no political ax to grind, She is a huge supporter of Hillary, and, of course, a deranged hater of Donald J. Trump.

NPR’s wounds are self-inflicted. A public broadcasting corporation needs bipartisan support. It should not serve a narrow segment of the public, it should serve all of the public.
NPR brags that its audience is not at all like the average American:Across platforms, NPR reaches the nation’s best and brightest. On air and online, the NPR audience is influential, affluent and curious. They are learning more and leading more. Connected to their local communities and tuned in to the latest public affairs and cultural conversations, the NPR audience embodies the thought and opinion leader.http://nationalpublicmedia.com/npr/audience/

So what do you do if you can’t trust any of the media on Trump?
Be an intelligent news media consumer.
Heavily discount anonymously sourced stories and documents.
Recognize that Trump has been in the public eye, and tabloid fodder, for decades. He was also in a highly competitive presidential race and he has enemies in the media on both the Left and the Right.
If Trump was a Grand Kleagle in the KKK, you would have heard of it before Nov. 9, 2016.
Recognize that the Left has gone ape shit over his election, and the Left holds the levers of power in the media, entertainment, academia, and Silicon Valley.
If the fringe of the right went crazy over Obama’s election and reelection, the mainstream of the Left has gone crazy over Trump’s election.
The fringe of the right believed Obama was a “secret Muslim” (whatever that means). The mainstream of the Left believe Trump is a pawn of Vladimar Putin, the tyrant of a country on the other side of the world, with half of the US population and that produces less than 1/4 of US GDP.

You might infer it was the same media that did nothing to point out that Obama could not possibly have been telling the truth when he claimed that a law that would outright ban many kinds of insurance would not deprive anyone of their insurance or doctors.

So, today we have this:Clinton Ally Says Smoke, But No Fire: No Russia-Trump Collusion

Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who endorsed Hillary Clinton and called Donald Trump a dupe of Russia, cast doubt Wednesday night on allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Now the first thing I noticed was that the allegations aren’t specified and are in passive voice. Someone had to make an allegation.
In the body of the article it gives only one allegation that is sourced:His comments were in sharp contrast to those of many Clinton partisans — such as former communications director Jennifer Palmieri — who have stated publicly they believe the Trump campaign cooperated with Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election against Clinton.

So you have an allegation by Hillary’s communications versus an anti-Trump partisan who would have been head of the CIA if Hillary had won.
What were Palmiere’s allegation?
I found this.

MADDOW: On Friday night, “Washington Post” broke the news that the CIA
reported that Russia interfered in the election, not just to cause chaos or
mess with American democracy. They did to hurt Hillary Clinton`s chances
at beginning president, and helped Donald Trump`s chances.

Joining us once again for her first interview since the election is Jen
Palmieri. She`s Clinton campaign communications director.

Jen, thank you again.

When that story came out on Friday night, you responded by tweet. You
said, quote, “Soul crushing”.

PALMIERI: I don`t even remember that.

(CROSSTALK)

MADDOW: It came from the bottom of a glass.

(LAUGHTER)

MADDOW: “Soul crushing are the only words I have. Can barely stand to
read this story.”

PALMIERI: Yes.

MADDOW: What did you mean by that?

PALMIERI: I mean, it`s helpful to have it out there that even the CIA has
resolved that it was not just an effort to interfere with our election, but
this is an effort to assist Donald Trump and becoming president. It is
soul crushing because it`s a little late to be learning this and also
because during the campaign, particularly the month of October, we – the
Clinton campaign tried a lot to get more attention paid, particularly
during what we were dealing with WikiLeaks and John Podesta`s e-mails being
released, and tried to get more focus in the campaign trail and the press
on the fact this was happening because – at that point, we already knew –
because on October 7th, the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, put
out a statement saying Russia is interfering in our election. These hacks
were done by the Russians and these likes are being done at the direction
of the Russians.

You know what else happened on October 7th? The “Access Hollywood” tape.

It was all I could find.
So you’ve got the current words of Morell versus the three month old words of Palmieri, Hilary’s communications specialist, that weren’t based on any special knowledge, but were based instead on the now-discredited intelligence report of the Obama administration released last Dec. 10.
That was the report Morell specifically repudiated in the linked interview.

Here is the link to the NBC story on Morell denying that there is intelligence that shows collusion between Trump and the Russians.
Some of what Morell says about the flawed Christopher Steele dossier (the one that claimed Trump personally paid Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed once used by Barack and Michelle) should have been discovered by journalists. Steele did not talk directly with anyone the dossier names, that he used intermediaries, and the intermediaries were paid.http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kidnap-victim-s-escape-car-s-trunk-caught-video-n734236

Wooly One, I thought you were pulling our lariat when you posted those quotes from NPR. Nobody could be that transparent about their coastal eliteness and disdain for the delporables and get away with it. And yet, there it is. Supported by the money stolen from the deplorables, to use to keep the deplorables under the thumb of “nation’s best and brightest”. Holy shit! You cannot make this stuff up.